Warner Music profit swells

Despite a drop in revenue, label giant says strong digital music sales and popular albums from Madonna, Enya, James Blunt, Green Day, and Notorious BIG incited a 92 percent profit surge.

Warner Music Group said today that it nearly doubled its first-quarter profits, riding strong digital music sales and albums from top-selling artists despite a decline in overall revenue.

The company said that digital music accounted for 7 percent of its total revenue and grew 36 percent from the previous quarter of fiscal year 2005. Digital sales jumped 125 percent to $69 million over the same period a year ago.

"This report demonstrates that we are transforming our vision into results," CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. said in a statement. "Our intense focus on and investment in the digital music business yielded dramatic growth in digital revenue, which was a major contributor."

Overall for the quarter that ended December 31, Warner said its profits jumped 92 percent to $69 million, or 46 cents per share, up from $36 million, or 31 cents per share, a year earlier. That beat the expectations of Wall Street analysts, who projected a profit of 40 cents per share on revenue of $1.09 billion, according to Thomson Financial.

Warner snared the jump in profits despite an overall 4 percent decline in revenue, dropping to $1.04 billion from $1.09 billion. The company's revenue from its recorded music business also declined, dipping 2 percent to $920 million.

But Bronfman boasted that the label had some hit albums in the quarter, particularly Madonna's Confessions on a Dance Floor, which has reportedly sold 3.5 million copies worldwide. The company also had strong album sales from Enya, James Blunt, Green Day, and Notorious BIG.

Warner's US album market share now stands at 17.7 percent, a 1.1 percentage point improvement over the same period a year ago, the company reported.

"We're particularly proud that Warner Bros. was the No. 1 selling label in the United States," he said. "We have gained album unit share year-over-year in four out of the top five musical genres."

Shares in Warner Music, traded as WMG on the New York Stock Exchange, dropped 2.3 percent in midday trading to $20.32.

Warner Music labels include Warner Bros., Atlantic, Elektra, Reprise, Rhino, and Bad Boy.

Bronfman and a group of investors bought Warner Music from media giant Time Warner Inc. in March 2004, and took the label public in May 2005. Before doing so, they restructured the business, jettisoned several artists whose music wasn't generating profits, and cut more than 1,000 jobs at Atlantic.